At Palace Garden in Macau, its Head Chef Ken Chong maintains the time-honoured precision of Taishi cuisine while modernising it much to the delight of a generation of diners both young and old.
If you ever get the pleasure of dining at Palace Garden, you’d immediately telegraph the culinary elegance of its Head Chef Ken Chong from the first bite. Now, return the next day, week, or even an extended period and order the same dish and marvel at its consistency in taste and presentation. This isn’t Chong performing magic but instead, him tirelessly pursuing an authentic culinary concept that he has performed again and again in his 20-year career of which three were spent at Palace Garden: consistency.
“I pay a lot of attention to all the dishes’ details to ensure that every dish presented has the same taste and presentation to every guest.” Chong describes what might sound perfunctorily easy to some but instead, requires equal amounts of patience and purposefulness for the Head Chef. Firstly, Chong ensures that every staff member can plate a dish with utmost precision but let’s not conjure up cultural visuals of what we assume head chefs to be like.
Instead, Chong practices a human touch when handling them. “Each staff has a different talent which I take into deep consideration. For example, one might be more diligent when they plate a dish versus another who has a deft hand when it comes to preparing the ingredients. I think my job is about recognising what someone’s strengths and weaknesses are and playing to that.”
Yes, this cross-cultural concept also extends to the interior of Palace Garden. Classical music is softly piped throughout the restaurant as one makes their way past a 35-metre-long Suzhou silk embroidery mural and a hanging glimmering Saint-Louis crystal chandelier.
And from the 7th to the 9th of June, SJM Resorts presented a 6-hands dinner called “Chefs’ Table: A Symphony of Senses” which invited chefs from YUE Creative Cantonese Cuisine and Mott 32 — renowned restaurants in Guangzhou and Hong Kong respectively — in what can be described as the culinary tale of three cities. Continue reading on for Lifestyle Asia’s interview with the three.
Q&A with Executive Chef Seven of YUE Creative Cantonese Cuisine, Head Chef Ken Chong of Palace Garden, and Group Executive Chef Lee Man Sing of Mott 32
LSA: Why the decision to collaborate for Palace Garden’s “Chefs’ Table: A Symphony of Senses” dinner?
Ken Chong: Both of them are top-notch chefs in China and Hong Kong and I’ve been paying a lot of attention to their dishes because I admire them a lot. Chef Lee has over 40 years of experience and Chef Seven and I share a similar background. We also always use premium Asian ingredients and prepare them in an East-meets-West way so I was very excited about this opportunity.
Seven: I like Cantonese food very much, especially Chef Ken’s dishes because it’s very traditional. While we have different points of view, I like that we both bring out the different facets of the cuisine but pay close attention to using a younger, more modern perspective in interpreting its traditional tastes.
Lee Man Sing: This is the first time I’ve been approached to do a chef collaboration in Macau and actually, Palace Garden and Mott 32 have very similar concepts so I immediately knew that this collaboration would go very seamlessly. I also wanted to introduce Mott 32 to a new audience.
Ken Chong: The “Crystal King Tiger Prawn served with Shrimp Roe and Lobster Jus Foam” only took us five minutes to create which was a sign that the process of working together would be flawless as we all shared a similar point of view! Chef Seven mentioned that he had a secret lobster broth recipe that he could share and Chef Lee came up with the idea of adding some foam and a lobster-shaped cracker to give the dish some texture.
Ken Chong: Chef Seven’s techniques are more modern and he even taught us some of his techniques. He’s even more energetic than the two of us whereas Chef Lee is more quiet and more persistent with his craft. Both, however, have their own unique charisma when cooking or interacting with the kitchen staff.
Seven: We were just discussing how to better the presentation of the shrimp broth in the kitchen by adjusting each of our approaches and coming together to think of a solution instead of an answer. For example, one of us would deep-fry a shrimp at a high temperature if he wanted to extract its flavour but the other would prefer cooking it over low heat to maintain its freshness and sweetness. The biggest benefit of this collaboration would be that we all have different views of what a dish could be but meet in the middle to come up with something new.
Ken Chong: I’ve always seen my relationship with my staff as a brotherhood where I’m the oldest and I could tell that they took this collaboration very seriously knowing that I did too. They were energetic when it came to learning techniques like prepping, plating, and cooking from the other two chefs and I hope this gave them a good experience.
Lee Man Sing: This collaboration represents three different cultures from three different cities and where I came in for the “Egg Noodles tossed with Fish Maw in Abalone Sauce” was by me using ingredients from Hong Kong as it has such a wide variety of seafood. I also don’t just braise abalone to get the sauce as I add premium ingredients like morel mushrooms to give it a full flavour.
Ken Chong: I want my customers to have tasted the full spectrum of Cantonese cuisine from the traditional to the modern. But everyone has different eating habits, tastes, and standards so as long as I did my job as a chef which is to understand what ingredients are the best then I believe I have done my job. I would like the customers to have enjoyed the dinner if it’s up to their standards or to set a new one for their own.
Seven: I like to incorporate funny elements into a dish’s plating like the “Thai Coconut Ice Cream with Jasmine” which is served like toothpaste. But, I hope that the diners managed to let go of themselves at the dinner to experience this new adventure the three of us took them on. That is the nature of such dinners—once it’s gone, it’s gone and can never be replicated.
Lee Man Sing: It’s rare to see such a collaboration, especially from where we hail from so I hope that the diners didn’t come in with expectations but instead, allowed themselves to be surprised by how Cantonese cuisine can be reinterpreted.
Palace Garden’s New Menu
A little bit towards the end of the interview, Chong mentioned that he had revamped Palace Garden’s menu. But that’s not to say he took it lightly—”It took me several meetings to decide on what I wanted but honestly, the process of working on it over the past two months was painful but I enjoyed it. We would taste the same dishes every day from the extensive menu that spans breakfast, to dinner, and drinks but thankfully, customers who tried it on the first day said they enjoyed it”.
Chong’s classic touches are still there. A painstakingly prepared Premium Patridge Bisque requires deft knife skills and patience to continuously pour over its broth, Crystal King Tiger Prawn marries Eastern flavours like premium shrimp roe with Western ones like broth-simmered broccolini and an accompanying sauce made from Italian red prawn, and the pièce de résistance: A Whole Fresh Crab Claw served with steamed Lobster Broth Egg White in all its freshness and tenderness as Chong has modernised it by using a flavour-amplifying French blue lobster broth and silky egg white to replace winter melon at the dish’s bottom (a Taishi cuisine tradition).
But if one should ask Chong for his favourite if they had the opportunity to speak to him, he would mention that it’s the Italian Red Prawn and Cristal Blue Shrimp Dumpling from the lunch menu. “We’ve always used French shrimp but this time, we added Italian red prawn as it tastes the sweetest out of all varieties. It might seem subversive to do so when you think of traditional Cantonese cuisine but together, they have a rich sweetness and texture that I guarantee you won’t get from any other Cantonese restaurants.
Palace Garden is located at Level 3, Grand Lisboa Palace, Rua do Tiro, Cotai, Macao. Click here for reservations or call (853) 8881 1800.
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